"Wisdom's Student" Proverbs 13 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Major General Edward Braddock arrived in Virginia February 1755 to take command of the British force that was going to war against the French in North America.

And his first and primary objective, as he was dispatched here, was to liberate Fort Duquesne, or to conquer Fort Duquesne, which is modern-day Pittsburgh now.

I know French people would insist that it be pronounced uh differently than that, but we won the war, so it's Fort Duquesne.

It was deep in the wilderness at the fork of the Ohio River.

Braddock was about 60 years old.

He was short, stout, bad-tempered, with almost no experience in actual military combat and zero experience in the kind of combat that his troops were experiencing in the United States.

He was rude, he was arrogant, and he made a thoroughly bad impression on his other officers and the Virginian soldiers.

On arrival, however, there was one American who was trying to get in his good graces, 22-year-old George Washington, had aspiration in the military and had written General Braddock a letter welcoming him and offering to be of some assistance as he tries to navigate Virginia.

Remember, Washington had surveyed much of this land even by his young age, and so General Braddock agreed and brought Washington on as his assistant.

Washington soon realized that he was perhaps in over his head because the troops hated Braddock.

Troops that had never met Braddock hated him because he wouldn't listen to anybody, including Washington.

He was stubborn and, as I mentioned, bad temper.

His temper and his management almost led to mutiny.

The troops almost revolted against him.

So to keep things from boiling over, he ordered them to march to Fort Duquesne well before they were ready.

He had them do that to keep them from killing him, really.

Progress was slow.

Washington offered much advice on the journey about how not to do things.

Braddock took exactly zero of his advice.

In fact, he split the army in half, leaving about 1,500 soldiers behind to bring the supplies up a few hours behind the rest.

He marched forward through the thick forest, the likes of which he had never been in before.

Eventually he led his men into an ambush.

Indians and Canadians darted up and down the flanks of the British and American troops, while the French just simply blocked the path in front of them.

The men panicked and turned around.

Many of the British soldiers who died died in crossfire, shooting each other.

As the British tried to escape, they ran into the 1500 troops bringing up the rear.

It was a massive collision.

George Washington wrote later that he tried to keep the men from colliding, the two halves of his army from colliding, but he said, and I quote, that all my efforts to such were about as effective as corralling a pack of wild bears.

British troops ended up firing on each other.

Washington's hat was shot off by friendly fire, and Braddock was shot in the chest, likely by friendly fire.

Although I don't know if you would describe it as friendly, regardless of who pulled the trigger.

Washington put Braddock on a cart, led him to safety, tried to get as many of the men as possible to retreat with him, but there was such chaos that many didn't.

Those who did not retreat were captured by the French and burnt alive in Fort Duquesne.

Washington propped Braddock up on a cart and asked his men to take him to safety.

The men refused to touch him.

The men refused to render him aid or care in any way, and he died.

Washington, of course, went on to bigger and better things.

God bless America.

Braddock is remembered as a life lesson, a monument, really, of what it means to be unteachable.

He's known through war history as an absolute fool, a stubborn fool refusing to take instruction.

But on the plus side, he did get a road named after him.

So, what a ridiculous road with all the curves.

And I asked people, why is it curved like that?

Like, haven't you heard of eminent domain?

Like, can't you fix that?

And the answer I got is no, it follows the path that Braddock took.

Okay, that's an argument against it, but whatever.

There you go.

Our address as a church is on Braddock Road, and um, there you have it.

Braddock was a monument of what it means to be unteachable.

That same sentiment can very easily be in each of our hearts.

The Bible describes what it means to be teachable, and what it means to be teachable is to submit yourself under the authority of the Word of God.

Somebody is teachable as somebody who is submitted to the authority of the Word of God in their life.

This is described all over the scripture, but one example would be Psalm 119, verses 98 through 100, the kind of in the middle of the Psalm there.

Psalms 119:98–100

The psalmist writes, Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.

I have more understanding than all of my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

I understand more than the aged because I keep your precepts.

I love that little passage of the psalm there, because the psalmist says that I'm wiser than wise people, I'm wiser than enemies, I'm wiser than teachers, I'm even wiser than old people.

And in the in the progression there, that's the wisest of them all in his mind.

He's wiser than everybody.

Why is he so wise?

Not simply because he has the word of God, but because he submits himself to it.

Even a young man who submits himself to the word of God can be wiser than his teachers.

That strain of wisdom and teachability is all over the Bible.

It is Solomon who sought the Lord's face on his knees.

If you read Solomon's dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8, it is one long appeal to be under submission to the will and the word of God.

The Queen of Sheba is mentioned in the Bible for her wisdom.

Do you remember why she sought out Solomon?

She sought out Solomon to learn from him.

She wondered what the secret of Solomon's wisdom was.

She discovered that it was his fear of Yahweh.

And so the Queen of Sheba is recognized even in the New Testament as a pillar of wisdom.

Nicodemus sought out Jesus even at night.

Seeking him out at night was somewhat of a cowardly move, and I imply that from John chapter 12, where it says that there were some leaders who believed in Jesus but didn't want to be outed.

John 12 · chapter mention

So it seems likely that Nicodemus was one of those who sought Jesus by night.

Nevertheless, he did seek Jesus.

And in pursuing Jesus with questions, even though his questions were in his heart, listen, he was not a pillar of absolute virtue here at Nicodemus.

You know, he came at night and he didn't vocalize his questions, but at least he came to Jesus, and Jesus rewarded that by reading his heart and knowing his true questions and answering them about what it meant to have eternal life.

And by the end of John's gospel, Nicodemus had gotten saved.

Mary sat at the feet of Christ, remember?

Martha was serving, Mary was learning, and Jesus said Mary was doing the one thing that was needful.

The Bereans are noted as monuments of wisdom in the New Testament because they diligently sought the truth in the Word of God.

They didn't just simply listen to teachers, but they put themselves under the authority of the Word of God and they sought the truth.

That's what wisdom is in the Bible.

It is wisdom to be teachable.

Tonight's message is called wisdom students because not everybody who has the Bible is wise.

Only those who pursue wisdom as a student.

And there's a word for that.

The word is teachability.

The word is teachability.

It's a category in the book of Proverbs: somebody who is teachable.

Somebody who is teachable will be made wise.

Proverbs 15, 14 says it this way: The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed on folly.

It is the wise person who wants to be teachable.

It is the wise person who is, notice here in the language of Proverbs 15, 14, seeking out knowledge.

Now, where is the wise person seeking out knowledge?

Well, through the word, primarily, but through others as well.

And we'll look at different categories of that as we go on tonight.

But the main point here is the contrast between the wise person who is seeking the word of God to apply it to his life and the fool who is only feasting on folly.

The fool is the one who eats cotton candy and calls himself full.

You know, he eats all the bread, he eats the bread basket and has no room for the steak.

That's the fool.

I know if you like bread, I'm not judging your food choices.

But you can see how that applies in morality.

Somebody who only seeks after the things that itch their ears, so they are filled up with learning, you know?

They learn from blogs instead of reading books to make it more modern day.

They have hours of time on social media, but not enough time to read a book or to read their Bible.

They're not seeking understanding.

You don't go to social media for understanding.

My goodness.

But you just think, how much time do you spend on social media versus how much time do you spend seeking knowledge and learning?

Full here is an idiom, like you're full because you spent all of your time that day.

It's all filled up.

You filled yourself on things that don't actually satisfy.

You feed on folly.

That's not the wise person.

The wise person actually seeks knowledge.

Some of you are giving me the look like, oh, it's fun in games and you made fun of cotton candy, but once you went to my screen time, step off.

This reminds me of David.

David surrounded himself with advisors.

That's one of the things that stands out about him in 1 Samuel.

He got advisors in 2 Samuel.

He got advisors to himself.

And his enemies, remember, when they exiled David under Absalom, his enemies took his advisors, but his enemies didn't listen to his advisors.

So it does you no good if you have the best advisors if you don't listen to them.

Rehaboam, the same way, Solomon's son Rehoboam, had the best advisors around him.

He rejected them, replaced them with his frenzies, and gave him terrible advice, and he wrecked the kingdom.

Proverbs 15, 32.

Keeps this category going.

Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

You can focus on the second half of that verse.

The one who listens to correction actually gains intelligence.

And that it should be tremendously encouraging.

Because you know that so many human traits are not coachable.

They're not teachable.

You know, you can read all the books about protein and growth plates that you want.

You're not going to make yourself taller.

Some of you have like a maximum speed.

You can train all day long.

You're not going to improve your 40 time at all.

You can go to the gym every day and you might get a little bit stronger, but you're not going to be some Olympian or anything.

You have kind of a maximum amount of speed.

And that's true, I think, in an intellectual sense too.

You can devote yourself to studying physics, but unless you have natural aptitude in that way, you're probably not going to be a good physicist.

And that's true of just about every category of learning.

But here the Bible offers you something about wisdom that's not like that.

You can devote yourself, even the foolish person, can devote himself to being corrected, and he will then gain intelligence.

You can actually grow in godly wisdom.

Even if you are a fool, right now at this moment, you're a fool.

You don't listen to the word of God.

You haven't been growing in wisdom.

Your life is marked by foolishness, or perhaps you're just young.

And this is the thing about Proverbs.

Remember, it's directed at kind of the 14 to 15-year-old age category here.

And Solomon's operating assumption here is that 14 to 15-year-olds are foolish.

They need foolishness driven from them.

And that's why the book of Proverbs is written.

To set it out in front of them and say, hey, my friend, I'm sorry you're young.

It's not your fault.

You can't control when you're born.

But what you can control is outgrowing your foolishness.

You can learn.

And if you listen to correction, you will gain intelligence.

That's teachability.

There's a contrast as I look at this.

Whoever ignores instruction is a fool and despises himself.

My mind goes to Nabal and Abigail and David.

You remember Nabal, which just means fool, he was appropriately named.

He ignored his wife's advice and cost him his life in 1 Samuel 25.

Abigail then meekly, very meekly reproves David, just so humbly and softly corrects David.

David's not a fool.

David loved it.

David loved it so much he married her.

What a contrast.

The foolish guy is encouraged by his wife in a good direction and ignores it to his own harm.

The wise person is softly and gently nudged by somebody he met yesterday and is like, hello.

Teachability is a valid category.

You can be marked by teachability, which is a virtue.

It is the ability to grow in wisdom.

So teachability is a virtue.

That's my main point tonight.

Teachability is a virtue.

A humble person who wants to learn is a virtuous person.

Now, Proverbs describes it as a virtue.

For example, Proverbs 12, verse 8 a man is commended according to his good sense.

Proverbs 12:8

But one of twisted mind is despised.

Here the word commended is where I'm getting the idea that teachability is a virtue from.

You're commended for it.

Even the world recognizes teachability.

There's a great irony that the world loves darkness, not light.

We read about that in John 12 tonight.

The world loves darkness and not light.

But even hated wisdom is recognized by the world.

The world rejects God and rejects God's wisdom, but then they see a wise person, a person who knows how to operate in the world because they possess biblical wisdom and the world respects that person.

You saw this with Jesus.

The people respected Jesus.

Even those that ultimately hated him respected him.

They told him, for example, right before they betrayed him, they said, Teacher, we know you speak the truth rightly.

In contrast, look at how they treated Judas.

They respected Jesus because they saw his wisdom, even though they hated his light.

And they looked at Judas.

The world loved the darkness in Judas.

The world was, had the same worldview, so to speak, as Judas.

They loved Judas in that sense, but as far as it came to interacting with Judas personally, nobody cared for him.

After he betrayed Jesus, he went back and sought the favor of the leaders, the very people that he betrayed Jesus to, and they rolled their eyes at him.

They had no need for him or room for him at all.

You learn from this that people are not despised for their poverty.

They're not despised for their misfortune.

They are despised for their foolishness.

Even people in the world despise fools.

That's why there's no hope for a fool.

There's no hope for him because he won't be teachable.

Foolishness and a lack of wisdom are wound up in a lack of teachability.

So somebody who is a fool, there's not a lot of hope for him because they're not teachable.

But somebody who is a young fool who's just entering into this, they can be taught.

And it's important for them to be taught, as Proverbs 13, 14 says, the teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, so that one can turn away from the snares of death.

Person who refuses to learn is on their way to hell.

They will be trapped in sin.

The language, the snares of death, is from earlier in Proverbs about the adulterous woman who lays the trap.

The foolish person falls into the trap.

The wise person avoids the trap.

Remember earlier in Proverbs, Solomon writes about seeing the young man and he sees the adulterous woman outside who lures in the young man and says, Oh, follow me.

And the young man falls for it and follows her.

And Solomon shakes his head, and it's probably David speaking to Solomon there and says, That guy doesn't know that the way is death.

So he goes along.

The wise person gains wisdom and doesn't fall into the trap of death.

I don't have a rat problem at my house.

But I did Google rat traps recently.

And I saw one that was not just a normal glue trap, but a massive glue trap.

And the rats would get on it and they would call for help, and other rats would come.

And in this little video, you just end with a pile of rats.

Like a big pile.

And you would think like rats are supposed to be really smart.

You would think that like the fifth rat or the tenth rat would have figured it out.

People are like that.

They're lured into sin and they don't turn away and they end up in the scenarios of death.

The wise person he finds the fountain of life from the inside out.

You listen to the person that shows you how to have eternal life, and you'll live with wise people.

The ear that listens to life-giving reproof there, that's the word for correction.

It's used all over the book of Proverbs.

It's not something that you're excited to hear.

Nobody wants to be corrected.

You don't come to your friend one day and say, Hello, can you tell me something I'm doing wrong?

I'd just like to know.

Nobody wants to be corrected, but the ear that listens to correction will be considered wise.

So teachability is a virtue.

And when you turn your ears towards correction and wisdom, you grow in it.

However, teachability is also obvious.

It's obvious who is teachable and who is not teachable.

You don't have to do a spiritual aptitude test to figure out if you're teachable or not.

You can just ask people that love you enough to tell you.

Teachability is obvious.

For example, Proverbs 12, verse 16.

Proverbs 12:16

The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.

A foolish person is so obvious because they get offended by everything.

You meet somebody who's always offended, you've met a fool.

Their vexation is obvious.

The prudent ignores an insult.

The prudent ignores an insult.

Somebody gets in your face and calls you a name.

The wise person is like, I think I'm going to keep on walking.

That's wisdom right there.

The foolish person is like, Did you hear what he said about my mom?

You can't talk about my mom like that.

That's over the line.

You said my mom.

That's the foolish person talks like that.

The foolish person is ready to fight, looking for an excuse.

The wise person, you can heap all kinds of scorn on them, and they'll move along.

The wise person knows the more you yell at them, the more you cuss at them, the less they want to do with you, and so they get out of the place.

The foolish person makes up an excuse to be offended and to fight.

Not the wise person.

It's so obvious.

The fool is able to explain away everything.

The fool is always right in his own eyes.

Proverbs 13, 16.

Every prudent man acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly.

Again, this is speaking to the obviousness of teachability.

You can tell a wise person because the way they conduct their lives is with knowledge.

They do things that they know about, they have a reputation for competency.

It's obvious.

This is not a verse that tells you how to get competent.

This is a verse that tells you how to identify a teachable person.

A teachable person is one who is competent.

They're good at what they do.

And you think about that.

How does somebody get good at what they do?

Well, probably they're teachable.

That's the point here.

How do they get skilled?

How do they become competent in whatever career they have?

Are they very good at their job?

Be their job anything, from a highly skilled lawyer or doctor all the way down to a janitor.

You recognize a skilled janitor.

A skilled janitor is good at what he does, and you say that is a wise person.

He's not wise in terms of the, you're not saying somebody who's a doctor is more wise than a janitor, but you are saying somebody who is a janitor who is skilled is wiser than a doctor who's unskilled.

So how did the janitor get skilled?

By being teachable.

That's the point.

A fool flaunces folly.

In contrast, the fool is just messes up everything.

Proverbs 14, verse 8.

Proverbs 14:8

The simple inherit folly.

But the prudent are crowned with knowledge.

Notice the cause and effect here.

The simple person has inherited folly.

And you could say this just at face value.

He inherited it from Adam.

The simple person is born into sin.

Because of Adam, that's what he gets.

And that's what he has to give, also.

Meanwhile, the prudent person is crowned with knowledge.

He crowned has this idea of achieving it.

He's reaching forward, he's prudent, so he's disciplined, he's listening to correction, and he is ultimately and finally crowned.

Proverbs 18, verse 2.

Proverbs 18:2

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

And somebody asked, Hey, what do you think that bird is?

And me, a birder of all of one year, was like, Oh, it's, and I said what bird I thought it was and why I thought it was, and I had like three facts about the bird that I read in a book or something.

So it's later that I learned the guy I was standing next to is arguably the top biologist in our country.

The head biologist for the National Park Service.

When I discovered that, I sought him back out.

And I was like, how do you just sit there quietly while I'm like spouting something I saw in a bird book that day?

And he's like, oh no, I'm used to it.

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding.

Imagine being in that scenario and thinking, like, oh, your opinion is what matters here.

That's foolish.

And of course, this carries on to every area of life.

The fool is never asking questions.

He's always willing to talk.

It doesn't matter if he knows anything about it.

He saw a YouTube short about it yesterday, so he's an expert.

That's the fool.

Well, how can you become teachable then?

There's different ways.

It's a virtue and it's obvious.

It's a virtue, so you should want to become teachable.

It's obvious if you are teachable.

How does one become teachable?

Well, you can be teachable by discipline.

That's probably the most common way in the book of Proverbs.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

And so as you look at that verse for a second, you think, does anybody actually love discipline?

The person who loves knowledge over discipline can be said to love discipline.

But he who hates reproof is just stupid.

And you see this, you know, the foolish person has an excuse for everything.

And this is something that is lost on the foolish person.

It is true that everybody does what is right in their own eyes.

Even sinners do what's right in their own eyes.

A godly person does what is right according to God's standards, but as best as they understand them.

So every human being is always acting in accordance with what they think is right for the circumstance.

Nobody acts to their own self-harm intentionally.

And this is what the foolish person doesn't understand.

Because the foolish person is corrected and they hate the correction because they don't want to listen.

They want to explain why they were right.

They say, oh no, you don't understand.

What I meant when I did that was this, that, and the other thing, with a long explanation about how what they were actually doing was right in their own eyes.

And when you listen to that, you're saying, like, I know you thought it was right, obviously, because you did it.

We're not talking about that.

We're talking about why, in fact, it was actually wrong.

I see many of the parents laughing about this.

You know, again, Proverbs is written to the teenager.

But man, this characteristic carries on with you the rest of your life, doesn't it?

If you don't, if you don't fight this characteristic in your in your teenager heart, it becomes the whole tree that you live your whole life under the shade of, and it is not good.

It gets more on the nose here in Proverbs 15:5.

Proverbs 15:5

A fool despises his father's instruction.

But whoever heeds reproof is prudent.

The father corrects the child, and the foolish child is like, No, you don't understand.

He hit me first.

You don't understand he talked about my mom.

You don't, if you were there, you would have blah blah blah blah blah.

Oh, the course I didn't, you know, do what you asked me to do because of the other thing.

This goes on your whole life.

The the boss who corrects his employee.

And the employee says to the boss, oh no, you don't understand.

What actually happened was this, that, and the other thing.

I mean, how long is the employer going to deal with that?

Not very long.

The foolish person always has the excuse.

But the person who heeds correction, that person is truly prudent.

That person is wise.

A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding, it's Proverbs 17, 10, than a hundred blows into a fool.

Somebody who's wise and values instruction, you only have to correct them one time, and it penetrates their hearts.

They're so shocked at their foolishness.

They're like, I can't believe I was doing that.

I didn't realize I was communicating that.

I didn't mean to do that.

Oh my goodness.

And it is more severe than a hundred blows.

But the foolish person, man, you can whip that dude a hundred times and he's not gonna learn anything from it.

He doesn't have understanding.

Proverbs 19, 25, strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence.

I mean, the scoffer, which is used synonymously here with the fool, the scoffer, he's not teachable.

Remember, he has an excuse and a justification for everything.

He is not teachable.

He scoffs at others.

This is why scoff, we'll save the scoffer for another Sunday night.

But the reason the scoffer is synonymous here with the unteachable person is because rather than teaching, he makes fun of.

Rather than teaching, he mocks.

So he brings everybody else down to his level.

He's so foolish, he thinks that's raising himself up.

It's not raising himself up, it's just bringing everybody down to the lowest, which means you're all gonna drown, you know.

But that's the scoffer.

And here, in the category of teachability, if you strike that kind of person, the simple person will learn from it.

This is the old adage: if you want to keep everybody in line, throw one person out.

Throw one person out of line, and the rest of the people in line will learn to stay in line.

That's that's this proverb.

Even a simple person will see what happens to the scoffer and say, wow, I should probably get maturity.

If you reprove somebody who has understanding, he'll gain knowledge himself.

You strike the scoffer, the scoffer doesn't learn anything by it, but other people do.

But if you reprove somebody with understanding, that person will gain the knowledge from the understanding.

He will grow in wisdom.

He'll grow in wisdom.

One way you can be teachable is by discipline, correction, rebuke.

The other way you can be teachable is by others.

Like more, not necessarily rebuke, but actual advice, instruction that's given to you, teachable by others.

So for example, so this Proverbs 12, 15.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

Now remember what I said earlier, everybody does what is right in their own eyes.

It's just that the Christian has yielded himself to the authority of the Word of God, and so is taking the Word of God as the standard and trying to live in accordance with that, as best as you understand it.

But even in that circumstance, the wise person understands that they are so limited in what they know.

Even the Christian says, I want to use the Word of God as my guide, I want to live in accordance with the Word of God, but as it relates to me, it's me that's making the choices.

Here's an expression that I often say people are terrible when it comes to making choices about their own life.

They don't have the right perspective.

It's like asking the goldfish to decorate your house.

He doesn't see all the house.

He can barely see his corner of the room and he's looking at it through the tank because he's in it.

People tend to make very bad decisions about their own lives.

A wise man listens to advice.

Remember, the foolish person has when you correct him, this is not the correction proverb, that's the ones we looked at earlier, but the foolish person, you correct the foolish person, they make excuses about what they were thinking and what they meant, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you don't know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

In contrast of that, the wise person comes and says, Hey, I'm thinking of making this choice.

Can you help me?

Now, of course, there's another side of this.

There's definitely room for a foolish person who goes advice shopping.

You know what I mean by that?

Advice shopping.

Where you ask a whole bunch of people until you finally get the answer you want.

You know, should I quit my job and go sail around the world in a boat?

And you ask 50 of your friends and are like, that's the dumbest idea you've ever had.

Please don't.

But you have one friend who sells boats.

They're like, hey friend, I'm thinking of quitting my job and sailing around the world in a boat.

And he's like, that's brilliant.

And you go back to your wife, hey, I sought advice.

So we're not talking about that.

We're talking about seeking advice from people before you make life choices, people that are wise themselves, people that are teachable themselves.

We always make bad choices about things that in our own life.

Listen, if something is, I'm not saying you need to ask advice for where you go to lunch, that's kind of silly.

Ask advice on, you know, something daily like that.

That would just make you hard to live with.

But in terms of decisions that actually affect your life, you should ask advice.

You should ask advice.

You should ask advice before you spend lots of money on things.

You should ask advice before you make a career choice that's gonna take you from one place to another, or even a career choice that's changing careers here.

You should ask advice for the young people before you decide who you're gonna marry, before you decide where you're gonna go to college.

You should take advice from older and godlier people on those things.

Not because they're trying to micromanage your life.

I mean, don't ask advice from micromanagers, but ask advice from people that you respect and are marked by teachability themselves, that make good decisions themselves.

So you can learn from them.

You ask advice from people that know you, that know your skills, that know your family.

A wise person listens to that kind of advice and doesn't make his own decisions on significant things.

We'll talk about leadership at a different week.

Of course, leaders have to make good decisions and they have to move people forward.

We're not talking about that category now.

We're talking about significant decisions in your life.

In terms of debt, marriage, family, houses.

And there is something I think that's different in the DC area where there's kind of a privacy in people's lives that is not common even in the rest of the United States.

I hope you know that.

If you've been in the DC area long enough, you might think this is so weird.

It is much more of a commonly accepted attitude in the rest of the Christian world that you ask people for advice in these categories of things.

In the DC area, I don't know if it's because of background checks or clearances or the competitive nature of trying to rise to the government ranks.

I have no idea what the root cause is.

I'm sure some of you do, but people tend to be way more private about those kind of things.

And that leads to a very unhealthy dynamic where people become wise in their own eyes.

Anyway, you should be teachable by others.

That's repeated in Proverbs 13, verse 1.

Proverbs 13:1

A wise son hears his father's instruction.

But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

That's not quite the right verse on the screen, but no, the Proverbs 13.1 says, A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

Proverbs 19, 20, something similar.

Listen to advice and accept instruction, and you will gain wisdom in the future.

Let people give you advice and then actually listen to it, and you will grow in wisdom.

The more advice you take, the wiser you get because you're learning, you're you know, wisdom is a thing that you're borrowing from somebody, you don't have to give it back.

You borrow wisdom, you now own it, you use it, you've gained it.

That's Proverbs 19:20.

Proverbs 19:20

The wise person is teachable because they accept advice from others.

Now, the opposite of teachability is the unteachable person.

The unteachable person.

Everything I just said about the teachable person is true in its opposite with these.

Except for the first one.

The first point tonight, I remember being teachable is obvious.

That's true of the unteachable person.

It is so obvious that they're unteachable.

The unteachable person is full of folly.

He's content just to, as I said earlier, to feed on the cotton candy.

He's content on the silly things in life, he's content on the social media and not the books, he's content on whatever surfacey.

That's the foolish person, and it is obvious his folly is evident to all.

Proverbs 15, 12 says it this way: a scoffer does not like to be reproved.

He will not go to the wise.

A scoffer doesn't want to be corrected.

And because he doesn't want to be corrected, he's not gonna go to somebody who's wise enough to correct him.

He knows, man, if I asked, if I ever have this thought that goes through my mind, if I told Deezer about this, she would tell me not to do it.

Therefore, I shouldn't ask her.

No, no, that's so foolish.

The scoffer doesn't like to be reproved, so he won't go to the wise person.

Deidre and I will sometimes be trying to make a decision, and she'll tell me, you know, you should go to you know this person or that person and ask for advice.

That's what a wise person would do.

A scoffer would say, I'm not gonna ask somebody else for that.

Come on.

I can make my own decisions.

This is America.

Proverbs 15, 21.

Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.

Notice the this is what I meant earlier, talking about Braddock Road and this acuteest part of the road.

Man, folly is such a joy to the person who lacks sense.

It is so different to the man of understanding who walks straight ahead.

You should think of that verse every time you drive around that corner.

You think that General Braddock wouldn't listen to advice, and now there's a curvy road named after him.

That's what they get.

But me, I'm gonna be teachable, and when I'm teachable, I'm gonna take the straight way.

Unteachable people are recognizable because they cause conflict.

Unteachable people are recognizable because they cause conflict.

Proverbs 13, 10 captures it this way: By insolence comes nothing but strife.

But with those who take advice, there's wisdom.

When we looked at the flip side of other Proverbs that said the same thing, remember the unteachable person is the one that is easily offended.

The wise person walks away from the insult, the unteachable person is so easily offended, they always have an excuse to be provoked.

And so when you're around that kind of person, it produces nothing but strife.

Strife is just the word for conflict or friction, relational friction.

Insolence is the word for lack of teachability, disorder, lack of humility, lack of submission to the word of God, that creates strife.

And specifically, who does it create strife with?

With people that are seeking wisdom.

You start avoiding the foolish person, that causes its own conflict.

Wise people seek out wise people and flee from the foolish.

And then a lack of teachability ends with pain.

A lack of teachability ends with pain.

And a lot of this is just like consequences of your actions.

You understand this.

You have a kid who's not teachable, it breaks your heart because you recognize how is this gonna end?

You have a kid who's unteachable, it's not gonna get better.

He's not gonna suddenly find a job where unteachable people are valued.

That's probably not gonna happen.

The unteachable person is gonna grow up to experience conflict and strife and ultimately destruction.

Proverbs 13, 13.

Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he reveres the commandment but will be rewarded.

And this is back to where we started tonight with Psalm 119.

Remember, the wise person takes the word of God and says, I'm gonna live by this.

The unwise, the unteachable, the insolent despises the word of God.

When we're dealing with light and darkness categories, it's all about love-hate.

You either love the word and you live by it, or you hate the word and you flee it.

You're in the light or the darkness.

The wise person loves the word of God, but the unteachable person despises the word, which will end in his destruction.

That's probably pointing forward to eternity.

But there is even the suffering of the normal life that people experience by being unteachable.

Proverbs 13, 15.

Good sense wins favor, but the way of the treacherous is their ruin.

Good sense wins favor.

The person who knows how to make friends and to have a polite turn of phrase can win people's favor.

They have wisdom and so they're valued.

Person with good sense becomes friends with other people.

People like them.

But the way the treacherous person means people get away from them so fast and it ends up in their ruin.

Eventually they run out of people to ask advice to.

And so their end is ruin.

This is true in the secular world, in the working world, so to speak, Proverbs 13, 18.

Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction.

But whoever heeds reproof is honored.

This is what I meant earlier that somebody who's not teachable is probably not going to find a job where that characteristic is rewarded.

They're gonna, and these are generic principles, of course.

You might think of an exception.

You might think of, I know that one unteachable dude, and he's filthy rich.

That can be true.

These are general principles.

Generally speaking, somebody who is unteachable is going to end up poor, he's going to end up in disgrace, he's not going to be well liked by others.

Meanwhile, the kind of person who's corrected by his boss is esteemed and honored.

He gets employee of the month.

Woohoo.

Proverbs 13, 20.

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

And this is why the unwise, unteachable person ends up isolated.

Because the people that are drawn to them love strife.

People that are drawn to the unwise person love strife.

That friction experience, they gravitate towards it.

And so what's true about the unteachable person, they get enveloped in that.

And they'll suffer harm.

You're good friends with a fool?

You're good friends with somebody who's unwise.

The harm that they're on their way to will eventually befall you as well.

It's a blast that is more than one person around.

Proverbs 13, 22.

Sorry, this should be Proverbs 27, 22.

Proverbs 27, 72.

Crush a fool in mortar with a pestle, along with crushed crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him.

So mortar pestle is not something that we use in our country, but is used in just about every other country in the world.

I had one in my office, and I was going to bring it here as a prop, and it is missing from my office, and I'm looking at like three people right now.

It's a little stone bowl, and it's got the little wooden mallet in it, and you mix it up, you make maize in it, corn, like tortillas in it.

You mix it up, you grind it up.

That's what it is.

And so Solomon is saying here, you can crush a fool in one of the things.

Put a fool in that little bowl, hit him with the mallet, grind him all up with your flour, and make a tortilla out of him.

And you know what'll happen when you make a tortilla out of the fool?

You have a foolish tortilla.

That's what happens.

You take a bite of that tortilla and you think, like, man, this tastes like the fool.

That's because you put a fool into it.

That's this proverb.

You don't get rid of the ingredients by mashing them up.

It's ground up in the bowl.

Pharaoh was crushed by the mortar of the plagues and still pursued the Israelites into the wilderness.

Grind up Pharaoh.

Charles Bridges comments on this verse and says, Though the rock be broken in pieces, it still contains all its native hardness.

This is why fools can suffer and they can be beaten down and broken down.

The kind of correction that would heal a wise person.

A wise person would be corrected like that and they would say, Oh, I'm so sorry.

I can't believe I did that.

Help me be better.

I want to do better starting right now.

That's a wise person.

The fool, you can correct them all day long, and they'll be back to their foolish ways tomorrow.

It doesn't matter.

Ultimately, this ends very poorly for the fool.

There's severe discipline, Proverbs 15 20 says.

There's severe discipline for him who forsakes the way.

Whoever hates reproof will die.

Final warning here.

It can be too late to help some of these people.

It can be too late to help the unteachable person.

Proverbs is not written to people for whom it's too late for.

It's written to the young person, but you can cross the line where it's too late to help you.

Proverbs 14, 6, a scoffer seeks wisdom in vain.

A scoffer can be so entrenched in his ways that once he finally decides he wakes up one day and says, Okay, I'm fixed now.

Today I'm gonna look for wisdom.

Oh, my friends, that's too late.

You waited way too long for that.

You're like Esau, who sought repentance with tears.

It's too late, man.

Sorry, Esau, you sold it already.

The unteachable person has that experience.

Proverbs 29, verse 1.

Proverbs 29:1

He is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

This is the image of the ox who's you know pulling the millstone around, and the ox is over it and stiffens his neck.

Perhaps you've even touched an animal like that, an ox or a beast of some kind, a camel that is done pulling the thing, it just stiffens and tightens up, and you touch it and you feel their muscles quivering.

I have on a camel, I've felt a camel that's just done with it and digs his feet in and pulls his muscles back, and the whole thing, the whole animal is shaking.

You know what's not gonna break?

The millstone will not break.

The ox is not gonna break the millstone.

But unless that ox or that camel figures out how to start walking again, he'll break himself.

He'll pull his own muscle, he hurt his own leg.

This is the common complaint about Israel in the Old Testament, by the way.

They were like that animal that would not be corrected.

They were so stubborn.

I hope this serves as a reminder to you, Proverbs 1927, because it can happen to anyone.

Anybody can become like this.

Even in your old age, you lead a life of wisdom, you've just stored it up, but you can become cocky and arrogant.

Proverbs 19 27 if you cease to hear instruction, my son, you will stray from the words of knowledge.

There is an invitation that I want you to see with your eyes here if you flip over to Proverbs 22.

And we'll end here.

Proverbs 22, 17.

It's longer, so I'm not going to put it in the screen.

So Proverbs 22, 17, incline your ear and hear the words of the wise.

Apply your heart to my knowledge.

It'll be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips, that you may trust in Yahweh.

I've made them known to you today, even you.

Solomon's saying, I've given you all that you need to be wise.

I've made it known to you, I've taught you here.

This is towards the end of the book of Proverbs.

It's after all kind of the random Proverbs, chapter 22 is a switch in Proverbs.

Proverbs 22 · chapter mention

And Solomon's saying, I have taught you this thing now.

You've gotten all you need.

Haven't I written you in verse 20?

Haven't I written for you 30 sayings of counsel and knowledge to make you know what is right and true, that you may give a true answer to those who sent you?

That's the invitation here.

Solomon says, I've given you all you need to be wise.

The fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom.

Serve him, listen to him, and grow in wisdom.

God, we're grateful that wisdom is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he teaches us.

But we do pray that we would be marked by teachability.

We want to be the kind of people that learn, submit to the word, submit to discipline, correction, submit to the advice of friends, faithful to the wounds of a friend.

Help us heed them.

Keep us far away from arrogance and pride.

Help us be humble.

We don't want to be marked by strife, by a clean conscience and peace.

We want the fruit of the Spirit to be evident in our life.

We ask this in Jesus' name by your grace.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.